For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Essay

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process and steps to take to find resources for your essay.

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Get overviews, summaries, key authors, debates and ideas from encyclopedias, handbooks or textbooks. 

• Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples
• Handbook of indigenous peoples rights 
• Research Handbook on the International Law of Indigenous Rights
• Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies
• Routledge handbook of indigenous peoples in the Arctic  
• Routledge Handbook on Native American Justice Issues

Find journal articles

Start with the "Women's Studies International" database and then move on to other databases. Limit your search to "academic", "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed." For articles not available in fulltext within the database, use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

• ProQuest Sociology Collection - Searches multiple databases including: Applied Social Science Index, ProQuest Sociology Database, Social Services Abstracts, and Sociological Abstracts. For information of immigrants, racism, society, etc.
• Social Sciences Full Text  Covers social science journals
• Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America - for books, essays, journal articles, and government documents on all aspects of Indigenous culture, history, and life in North America. Topics include archaeology, multicultural relations, gaming, governance, legend, and literacy. Coverage is from the sixteenth century to the present.
• America: History and Life - literature on all aspects of United States and Canadian history, culture, and current affairs 
• Political Science Complete - scholarly articles related to labour, migration, unions, policies and remittances
• CBCA Complete  Canadian scholarly journal articles, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and and magazines.
• Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - contains the full text of public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks and research groups.
  • The "Boolean operators" (AND, OR) must be in capital letters.
  • If you don't want variations of a term then put the term in quotation marks ("term")
  • Advanced search engine:
• Canadian Newsstream  covers the major Canadian daily newspapers.
• Canadian Research Index Includes all depository publications of research value issued by both the federal government and the ten provinces and three territories; hard to find non-depository publications issued by hundreds of Canadian government agencies and departments

Find books in the Library

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, using either the Basic or the Advanced search

You can further limit the search results (below) by "subject" or "resource type"

• (aborig* OR indigen* OR native* OR indian*) AND settler* AND canad*
• (Aborig* OR Indigen* OR "First Nations") AND (employ* OR jobs OR labor* OR labour* OR skill*) AND (Canad* OR British Columbia")
  • Limited by selected "Subjects"
• (aborig* OR indigen* OR native* OR indian*) AND (racis* OR violen* OR injustice) AND canad*
• (aborig* OR indigen* OR native* OR indian*) AND (police OR policing OR criminal* OR justice) AND canad*
• (aborig* OR indigen* OR native* OR indian*) AND (health OR wellness) AND canad*
• indigen* AND (protest* OR resistance OR movement*)
• (Indian* OR Indigen* OR "Native American*) AND (Canad* OR "United States") AND (protest* OR resistance OR movement* OR struggle* OR rights)
  • results limited by "subject"
• "residential school*" AND  (canad* OR "british columb*")

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Use pulldown menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Use the  "subject  headings" within the library record for a relevant book to find more books on that topic.

Selected books

• 21 things you may not know about the Indian Act : helping Canadians make reconciliation with Indigenous peoples a reality 
• Allotment Stories : Indigenous Land Relations under Settler Siege
• Barriers to economic development in Indigenous communities : report of Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs
• Challenging Racist British Columbia: 150 Years and Counting
• Colonial racial capitalism 
• Colorblind Indigenous and Black Disproportionality Across Criminal Justice Systems
• Constant struggle : histories of Canadian democratization 
• Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
• Decolonizing employment : Aboriginal inclusion in Canada's labour market 
• Decolonizing equity [print]
• Extracting reconciliation : Indigenous lands, (in)human wastes, and colonial reckoning 
• First Voices: An Aboriginal Women's Reader 
• From treaty peoples to treaty nation : a road map for all Canadians 
• The gatherings : reimagining Indigenous-settler relations
• Ghost dancing with colonialism : decolonization and indigenous rights at the Supreme Court of Canada [print]
• The honour and dishonour of the Crown : making sense of Aboriginal law in Canada 
• Indigenous peoples and globalization : resistance and revitalization 
• Inventing the thrifty gene : the science of settler colonialism 
• It's all about the land : collected talks and interviews on Indigenous resurgence [print]
• Knowledge and decolonial politics : a critical reader - includes a chapter on decolonizing the classroom
• Living in Indigenous sovereignty [print]
• Natives & settlers, now & then : historical issues and current perspectives on treaties and land claims in Canada 
• Pathways of reconciliation : Indigenous and settler approaches to implementing the TRC's calls to action 
• Power & resistance : critical thinking about Canadian social issues [print]
• Reclaiming Indigenous Governance : Reflections and Insights from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States
• The reconciliation manifesto : recovering the land, rebuilding the economy [print]
• Red mitten nationalism : sport, commercialism, and settler colonialism in Canada 
• Strong Hearts, Native Lands: The Cultural and Political Landscape of Anishinaabe Anti-Clearcutting Activism
• Surviving Canada : indigenous peoples celebrate 150 years of betrayal [print]
• Talking back to the Indian Act : critical readings in settler colonial histories [print]
• These are the stories : memories of a 60s Scoop survivor  [print]
• Unsettled Borders: The Militarized Science of Surveillance on Sacred Indigenous Land
• Unsettling Canada : a national wake-up call 
• Upholding Indigenous economic relationships : Nehiyawak narratives [print]
• Urban Aboriginal policy making in Canadian municipalities [print]
• Violence Against Indigenous Women: Literature, Activism, Resistance  
• White benevolence : racism and colonial violence in the helping professions [print]

Browse by subject

Catalogue Search / Browse

  Change "Title" to "Subject" and enter:

• Indians of North America -- Canada
• Indians of North America -- Canada -- Government relations
• Indians of North America -- Canada -- Politics and government
• Indigenous authors -- Canada
• Indigenous peoples -- British Columbia
• Indigenous peoples -- British Columbia -- Claims
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Claims
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Government relations
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Residential schools
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Treaties
• Indigenous peoples -- Land tenure -- Canada
• Native peoples -- Canada
• Native peoples -- Canada -- Politics and government

Government information

Government of Canada

• Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada
• Indigenous Peoples
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Politics and government

British Columbia

Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation

• Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act action plan : 2022-2027

Truth and reconciliation, women 

• Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
• Highlights from the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
• National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
• Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
  • Final Report

Statistics

• Statistics Canada -  the major statistical gathering agency of the federal government. It publishes the "whole range of statistics on the economic and social activities of the Canadian people"
  • Publications by subject
    • Indigenous peoples

Library guides

• Findind and evaluating resources on the web
• Avoiding plagiarism
• What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal?
• How to write an annotated bibliography
• More Tutorials (interactive)
• Citation or reference management tools collect your journal article, book, or other document citations together in one place, and help you create properly formatted bibliographies in almost any style — in seconds.

Presentation skills

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

Writing help

Research Commons  provides support for academic writing and learning at the graduate level

• Academic writing resources
• Writing the literature review : a practical guide
• Library Catalogue search: Academic writing
• Browse Subject search: Sociology -- Authorship
• Writing services (Research Commons)
  • Including the Read Ahead Service and options to submit a consultation request..